NATION
In America, we have a long history of valuing the concept
of the separation of church and state. This idea historically referred to a
division of labors between the church and the civil magistrate. However, initially
both the church and the state were seen as entities ordained by God and subject
to His governance. In that sense, the state was considered to be an entity that
was “under God.” What has happened in the past few decades is the obfuscation
of this original distinction between church and state, so that today the
language we hear of separation of church and state, when carefully exegeted, communicates the idea of the separation of the
state from God. In this sense, it’s not merely that the state declares
independence from the church, it also declares
independence from God and presumes itself to rule with autonomy.
R.C. Sproul
Statism, September 2008, Tabletalk, p. 7. Used by
Permission.
America
today is a save-yourself society if there ever was one. But does it really
work? The underdeveloped societies suffer from one set of diseases: tuberculosis,
malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera, typhus, etc. Affluent
America has virtually invented a whole new set of diseases: obesity,
arteriosclerosis, heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, venereal disease,
cirrhosis of the liver, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, battered children,
suicide, murder. Take your choice. Laborsaving machines have turned out to be
body-killing devices. Our affluence has allowed both mobility and isolation of
the nuclear family, and as a result our divorce courts, our prisons and our
mental institutions are flooded. In saving ourselves we have nearly lost
ourselves.
Reconstruction to a Wartime,
not a Peacetime, Lifestyle, Perspectives on the World Christian Movement,
William Carey Library, 1981, p. 815.
America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who
shared certain moral commitments.
Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly
self-destructive.
John W. Gardner
You don’t have
to go to heathen lands today to find false gods. America is full of them. Whatever you love more than God is your idol.
D.L. Moody
According to
Edward Gibbon, in his classic work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
there were five major causes for the decline and fall of the Roman empire. 1. The breakdown of the family and the increase
of divorce. 2. The spiraling rise of taxes and extravagant
spending. 3. The mounting desire for pleasure and the
brutalization of sports. 4. The continual production of armaments to face
ever increasing threats of enemy attacks.
5. The decay of religion into
many confusing forms, leaving the people without a uniform faith. It is very significant that these factors
exist today.
George Sweeting
Who Said That? Moody Press, 1995, p. 143.
It is a fact
that unless children are brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,
they, and the society which they constitute or control, will go to
destruction. Consequently, when a state
resolves that religious instruction shall be banished from the schools and
other literary institutions, it virtually resolves on self-destruction.
Charles Hodge
But we would
do well to think of ourselves in the same way we used to think about the lost
people of the mission field. We have become the new heathen. We Americans are
the ones now in thrall to primitive superstitions, such as believing in the
power of positive thinking and having faith in ourselves. We are the ones held
back by a materialistic worldview that has little conception of the
supernatural. We are the ones with brutal customs, such as aborting our
infants, neglecting our children, and abandoning and sometimes euthanizing our
elders. We have simple, pounding music, and we are uneducated about the realities
outside of our tribe. With our limited mind-set, we have trouble grasping the
truths of Scripture.
Gene
Edward Veith
Spontaneous Compassion, Tabletalk, November,
2008, p. 82. Used by Permission.
As God can
protect His people under the greatest despotism, so the utmost civil liberty is
no safety to them without the immediate protection of His Almighty arm. I fear
that Christians in this country have too great a confidence in political
institutions…(rather) than of the government of God.
Alexander Carson
Confidence in God in Times of Danger, p. 41.
Despite its
foundational Christian heritage, America is rapidly degenerating into a godless
society. The church in America, although
highly visible and active, appears powerless to redirect the rushing secular
currents. Mired in a moral and spiritual
crisis, America’s only hope is a national revival, like God has graciously
bestowed in the past.
Erwin Lutzer
America’s Spiritual Crisis, Revival
Commentary, v. 1, n. 2, p. 12.
We must
repudiate our confused loyalties and concerns for the passing world and put
aside our misguided efforts to change culture externally. To allow our thoughts, plans, time, money,
and energy to be spent trying to make a superficially Christian America, or to
put a veneer of morality over the world, is to distort
the gospel, misconstrue our divine calling, and squander our God-given
resources. We must not weaken our
spiritual mission, obscure our priority of proclaiming the gospel of salvation,
or become confused about our spiritual citizenship, loyalties and
obligations. We are to change society,
but by faithfully proclaiming the gospel, which changes lives
on the inside.
John MacArthur
Titus, Moody, 1996, p. 138.
The real democratic American idea is, not
that every man shall be on a level with every other man, but that every man
shall have liberty to be what God made him, without hindrance.
Henry Ward Beecher
God
often blesses nations because of the obedience of the elect. The elect of God
is the remnant of faithful believers who occupy and advance the kingdom of God in
their land. (Had there been but ten in the days of Abraham, Sodom would have
been spared.) Because of this, it is the failure of the remnant, even more than
the evil of the heathen majority, which determines the future of a nation. The
remnant must be faithful to God’s standards.
Douglas W. Phillips
Why the
Life of the Mother is Not a Valid Exception for Abortion, December 16, 2002, www.visionforumministries.org,
Used by Permission.